


Voulez-Vous

by Dabberdees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: ABBA, Bi!Graham because ABBA is for the gays, Gen, I was reminded that Bradley Walsh loves ABBA, Ryan hates them because they sing it on the TARDIS, Thirteen Graham and the TARDIS are ABBA stans, Thirteen and Graham are BBFs and now ABBA fans, and man I love ABBA, fluff?, who doesn't they're great, wlw mlm ABBA friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 11:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dabberdees/pseuds/Dabberdees
Summary: The Doctor and Graham go to an ABBA concert.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O’Brien
Comments: 12
Kudos: 41





	Voulez-Vous

Graham is lent over a device that Ryan said was a must-have, looking confused and frustrated by it. Ryan said all he has to do is say its name and then what he wants and it'll work, but every time he's tried it's lead him onto something else and, quite frankly, he's had enough of it now. He just wants to listen to music while he does his chores.

“Ryan,” Graham yells from his living room, his head turning slightly to the door. “The Alex thingy ain’t working-” He complains, hands picking it up and giving it a shake. “Play ABBA-”

“Searching for-”

“No, stop, I don't want that-” Graham snaps before shoving it back onto the shelf again. “What’s the point in things like this,” He grumbles under his breath. “Honestly what was wrong with shoving in a CD or a record and calling it a day-”

“You yelled?” Ryan asks from the doorway. He looks bemused.

Graham stops his moaning and faces Ryan. “The thing isn’t working.”

“The thing?” Ryan repeats. "You might want to be more specific, Gramps."

"The Alex thing, it doesn't listen to me-”

“Alexa-”

“Alexa then, but whatever it is, it doesn’t work right-” Graham interjects. “-I just wanted to listen to some music while I cleaned the living room, but it’s tryin’ to do something else.”

"Move, it's simple to work it-" He walks forward and bats Graham’s hands away from the annoying device.

"It's not simple-"

"It is, you just weren't listening to me when I explained how it works to you," Ryan says as he looks down at it. “What was it doing, by the way?” Ryan probes. 

“I dunno, searching for things,” Graham says. “Look, can you just put ABBA on it?”

Ryan pauses and turns to face his grandad with a raised eyebrow. “ABBA?”

“What’s wrong with ABBA?”

Ryan shrugs and turns away again. “Nothing, just you and ABBA? I thought you liked what you called the ‘_classics_’-” He shrugs. “Like Elvis, Sinatra, and things-”

“And I do, but I like ABBA as well,” Graham says, defensive. “Can you get them playing or what?”

“Alright, alright,” Ryan exclaims, hands raised in surrender. “I can, sheesh, don’t get snappy,” He holds a hand out to Graham. “Give me your phone; I’m gonna make this easier for you cause lord knows you need it-”

“Why?” Graham questions. He pulls his phone out and holds it out to his grandson. "I don't want you to make that confusing as well."

“Just give it here, Gramps,” Ryan says, grabbing it and then unlocking it. “Before you ask, and I know you will, you never changed your pin code, that's how I know how to unlock it-” He says, flicking through and finding what he needs. It’s not long before he’s handing the phone back. “There.”

“What did you do?”

“You can play whatever you want from your phone now,” Ryan explains. He shows Graham how to open the app he'll need, how to search, and then he selects Dancing Queen. The beat starts and Graham looks up with a smile. “See? It's a lot easier for you now, and you can listen to whatever you want, you only need to search for it.”

"Thank, son, I appreciate it, I don't mean to be daft with this stuff, but it's different to what I grew up with," Graham says as he looks at the phone. He flicks through the list, eyes lighting up when he sees every single song he loved from his youth. He pauses over the one album that means the most to him. “I had some good times to these,” He says, after a moment. “And by the way, son, these are the _classics_, stick a bit of Queen and Elton in this list, and you’ve got a good mix going-”

Ryan stares at his grandad, bewildered expression written across his face. “I didn’t realise you liked them as well.”

“Well, you never asked.” Graham points out. “Did you assume me and my friends listened to the stuff my nan listened to in clubs?” Graham questions. “I wasn’t always an old man, you know-”

“I just can’t see you dancing to,” He looks over Graham’s shoulder. “_Voulez-Vous._”

Graham gives him a confused look. “Why not?”

“You know what, nevermind, I’m going out now, by the way,” Ryan says. He turns and picks up his coat from the bannister of the stairs. “I’ll be a while.”

“Where?”

“Out, you won't know the place,” Ryan informs him. He turns and heads towards the front door. “Enjoy your afternoon listening to ABBA, gramps; I’ll be back later-”

“See ya, then-” Graham says, watching Ryan leave. He looks back to his phone in his hand. “Can’t knock the classics, son, not when they gave me good memories.”

He selects the album, _Voulez-Vous, _from the list and places his phone next to the Alexa device and gets about cleaning. It doesn’t take him long to get into the swing of things, the memory of the lyrics and the music coming back to him like he’s just heard it for the first time in the eighties again. The club and the sticky floor and the people, friends and- He closes his eyes, mind pulling up forgotten memories and the cleaning becomes a second thought as he starts to sing and move to the tunes of his youth, and after a while, the cleaning is soon forgotten altogether. Graham doesn't notice a banging on his front door or the opening of it as _Angel Eyes_ plays in the background. He's too distracted to notice the person walking in and then staring at him with a perplexed expression as he sings along to the song-

_“-Sometimes when I'm lonely I sit and think about him-”_  
_“-And it hurts to remember all the good times-”_  
_“-When I thought I could never live without him-”_

“Graham-”

_“-And I wonder does it have to be the same-”_  
_“-Every time when I see him, will it bring back all the pain-”_  
_“-Ah-ha-ha, how can I forget that name-?”_

“Graham,” Louder and more urgent this time. “Hey, Graham, snap out of it!”

_“-Look into his angel eyes-”_  
_“-One look and you're hypnotised-”_  
_“-He'll take your heart and you must pay the price-”_

_“GRAHAM!”_

_“-Look into his angel eyes-”_  
_“-You'll think you're in paradise-”_

“Oh, for Rassilon’s sake-”

There’s a clear cut out of the music, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder. Graham jumps with a yelp, hand on his heart and eyes frantically staring at the Doctor. “Why’d you do that for!?” He snaps. “Damn well near gave me a bloody heart attack-”

“You weren’t replying, Graham!”

Graham stares at the Doctor, and then his eyes catch that the door to his house is wide open. “You left the bleeding front door open as well; you’re like a cat-” He points out. “Wait, no, you let yourself, why'd you let yourself in?”

“And I’ll repeat what I said before,” The Doctor says. “You weren’t replying or answering the door, I thought something happened, heard noises coming from the house-” She frowns. “You were singing about a man’s angel eyes. Why?”

Graham frowns. “_Angel, man_?- Oh!” He says, pointing at her as he makes his way to the front door. He looks out, catching his busybody neighbour looking into his house. “Alright there, Mrs Davis, nice weather we're having for this time of year?” He says with a wave, and she quickly turns away. He smirks to himself as he shuts the door and walks back into the living room to find the Doctor watching him like a hawk. “It's a song by ABBA, Doc; I was just singing to it.”

“Oh,” She frowns. “Why?”

“Well, I was cleaning-”

The Doctor takes a look around the living room. “Doesn’t look like you were cleaning-” She reaches forward and runs a finger across a shelf. She lifts it back up and inspects it with disgust. "Really doesn't look like you were cleaning."

“Well, I was,” Graham replies, pushing past her. He picks up the long-forgotten cloth and polish and gets to work wiping down the shelves. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Bored,” The Doctor answers, watching Graham. “Yaz is at work-” Graham hums at her. “And Ryan said he was already out with some of his friends-”

Graham pauses his cleaning and stares at her. “So, what? I’m your last choice?”

“No,” The Doctor says, clearly lying.

“Mhmm,” Graham mumbles back at her. “You know, I get it, you can say I was.”

“Okay, you were-” He frowns at that. “You said I _could_, Graham.”

“That’s not what-” Graham blinks. “Fine, that’s fair, I did say that, and I do get that, you know, not as fun as Yaz and Ryan.” He turns back to the side again. “So, you’re here then, what is it that you want?”

The Doctor shrugs. She settles herself on Graham’s sofa, legs on the armrest while the rest of her lies across it. “Fancy doing something?”

“Like what?”

“Trip in the TARDIS,” The Doctor suggests. “Your choice-” She frowns. “-not the football match you keep pestering me about, I already said you can’t go to a place you’ve been before, Graham, can’t have you meeting yourself-”

“I wasn’t gonna ask that,” Graham responds, when, in fact, he was gonna ask that. “So a place I haven’t been to before then?” The Doctor nods and Graham stops cleaning again. He leans against the side and thinks. He’s done a lot over the years, football matches, countries. His eyes move across the room and land on the Alexa device and his phone. “How about a concert?”

“Concert?”

“Yeah,” Graham says. He throws the cloth and polish down again and heads over to his phone. “Now Ryan, he’d take the mick, but I never did manage to go to this concert,” He rambles as the Doctor listens. “1979, I was nineteen, and my parents said no for the obvious reasons, but we could go now?”

“What’s the concert?”

“Don’t laugh, Doc,” She raises an eyebrow at him. “ABBA, 1979, USA.”

“ABBA?”

“I said don’t laugh-”

“I’m not laughing, Graham, I'm just trying to place them-” The Doctor counters as she swings her legs from the sofa. “ABBA, ABBA, ABBA-” Her eyes light up, and she stares at Graham. “That _ABBA_!” Graham furrows his brows together. “I thought you meant the other ABBA, one from Neptune-” She rambles as she gets up, legs propelling her to Graham. She makes a grab for his hand and starts to pull him to the door. "Come on, let's go."

“Doc, what about-”

“You weren’t cleaning, Graham,” The Doctor speaks over the top of him. “And that can wait, we’re going to watch ABBA live, oh, I've never been, but the TARDIS she does half love ABBA.”

* * *

Graham would be lying if he said people weren’t currently giving both him and the Doctor weird and curious looks, but honestly? He couldn’t care less; these were the songs he grew up with, danced to, so what if it looks strange that a guy one year away from sixty is belting out the chorus to _Chiquitita_, left hand in the air and cup of something in his right. Anyway, it's 1979, and technically, he's at home back in Essex's being miserable and hating his parents right now. He frowns when the thought strikes him. There's currently two of him, at the same time, on the same planet and that really is a strange thought to have.

He glances to the Doctor, and she seems to be enjoying herself, though, just as much as he is. She did want to hold a lighter in the air like the various people around them, but he convinced her not to. The last thing anyone needs right now is for the Doctor to set fire to the entire outdoor concert somehow, but they made a compromise in the end. He gets the lighter, she gets her sonic, and the concert gets to stay intact. _Chiquitita_ comes to a finish, and he has to be honest with himself, this was a lot easier and less taxing on the body when he was younger.

“You good, Graham?” The Doctor yells at him over the crowd. "Look a bit flustered."

“Yeah,” He shouts back. “Easier when I was younger, but I'm good-”

“You’re younger than me.”

Graham furrows his brows at her and then shakes his head. He knows she’s older than he is and he knows it’s by a lot, but he's not sure by how much.

The Doctor suddenly grabs his hand again, half spilling his drink down his arm. “_Voulez-Vous_!”

Graham perks up like a meerkat, ears listening and he turns back to the Doctor. “_Voulez-Vous_!” He smiles. “Oh, this song is a _classic_-” A passerby gives him and the Doctor a puzzling look at their conversation.

“Why?” The Doctor asks, completely missing the look directed at them.

“I-” Graham starts to say, eyes narrowing slightly. He trusts her; he does- “I met someone to this song.” He realises they are shouting this conversation, the sound of the music almost deafening between them. “This entire album has a special place in my heart.”

“It does?”

Graham nods. “Had the best time to it,” He says, body pausing and listening to it, mouth moving to the lyrics. “Funnily enough it’s why I was singing _Angel Eyes_ earlier, cause he had them, Doc, he had them-”

That causes the Doctor to pause and then stop altogether, ancient eyes locked on Graham and he can’t help the shuffle to his feet. “Graham?”

“What?”

“You said he-”

“And?” Graham says, and he’s defensive all of a sudden. He’ll chalk it up to the time he grew up and not because he thinks the Doctor is like that or like the people from the eighties that he grew up near. “That’s not a problem, is it?”

The Doctor’s eyes widen and then she’s shaking her head looking horrified that he would think that. “No, no, not at all, I’m just-”

“Surprised?” Graham finishes for her, and she nods. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but-” He shrugs. “-Grace knew, by the way, told her.”

“She did?”

"Yeah? We didn't keep anything from each other," Graham shrugs again. “She was better than the guy I knew cause the song Angel Eyes really did apply to him.” He laughs. “I think I’m done now, by the way, Doc.”

“You are?”

Graham nods. “Yeah, I’m older now, and I’m knackered, plus I want to get home in time for The Cha-”

“Graham, the TARDIS is a time machine, I keep telling you this,” The Doctor reminds as leads him back towards the TARDIS. “She’ll get you home in time for your show.” The Doctor narrows her eyes slightly. “Most of the time, she does anyway.”

Graham nods at that, accepting that as much as he can anyway. As he follows after her, his mind wanders away, and he can’t help but ponder where his ex is nowadays. They spilt on decent enough terms, he supposes. It wasn’t sour, and there wasn’t bad blood between them. They just had different wants and needs.

The Doctor pushes the doors open to the TARDIS, and Graham instantly feels that ringing in his ears telling him that he’s been stood next to something loud for too long when he enters the quieter ship. He brings a hand up and rubs at them as he leans back against a crystal column and watches the Doctor move around the console.

“Thanks, Doc, by the way,”

“What for?”

“For taking me here, it was nice,” Graham says, and it’s genuine. “Sometimes I think Ryan thinks I’ve always been an old man, but it’s nice to sometimes, I dunno, to not feel that?” He says. “Cause it was good, reminded me of good times.”

“You’re not an old man, Graham,” The Doctor says with a smile.

“I dunno, Doc, I’m one year off sixty-”

“And I’m over two-thousand-”

“_Shut up_,” Graham says, and she shuts up, looking hurt. He chuckles and shakes his head. “No, not literally, Doc, I mean, shut up, as in, how can you be old two-thousand years old and not look it?”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you saw me before, Graham,” The Doctor replies. “All eyebrows and lines, like you-”

Graham frowns at the slight insult, but he waves it away. “Was it the white-haired Scotsman Ryan told me about?”

"Yeah, he never thought he looked old though," The Doctor explains as she flicks the final lever, the ship rocks and they cling to anything they can. It’s not long until she settles down again. The Doctor glances to her display screen. “Oh, I'm good, look, perfect timing, Graham,” She beams. “It’s ten to five in your time.”

“That’s brill, Doc, cheers-” Graham says. “Thanks again for this,” He says. “I mean it.”

“That’s quite all right, Graham,” The Doctor reminds him. “It was nice to have a simpler trip.”

"Yeah, I guess," Graham nods and smiles at that as he turns to exit the TARDIS. He pauses and glances back. “Hey, Doc?”

The Doctor looks over to him. “Yeah, Graham?”

“Fancy a cuppa?” He asks. “You can watch my show with me as well,” He says. “Hey, you should apply for it, you’ll probably get all the questions right as well-”

“I won’t be applying to go on your quiz shows, Graham,” She points at him. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

Graham laughs. “I guess, but you could win-" She gives him a pointed look. "But that would be cheating, and you like to sort fair play out in the galaxy and all.”

The Doctor looks impressed. “You listened.”

“I’m old, but I’m not completely deaf.” He frowns. “Although my hearing is still fuzzy after the concert.” He turns from the console room again. “So you staying for tea?”

“Tea at Graham’s?” She says. “Never had tea at Graham’s before.” She rushes past him, and he spots her through the doors claiming the sofa again. "Milk, honey, ten sugars when you're ready, Graham."

Graham sighs and shakes his head as he makes his way from the TARDIS and to the kitchen. It was a good trip, something he won't forget for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> They totally watched The Chase because it exists in the Doctor Who universe because Nardole used to watch it.
> 
> The Doctor kept staring at Graham and Bradley.  
Graham said they looked nothing alike.  
The Doctor is convinced one is a Zygon.


End file.
